September 5, 2013

Fox Network–How Many Lies?!

Have you ever fallen asleep while watching television? Even the scintillating Fox network? Tucker Carlson did. While he was on air. Don’t know who Carlson is? He’s a co-host of Fox & Friends, with the self-proclaimed “fair and balanced” perspective toward reporting.

No support from his co-hosts either. They openly ridiculed him before waking him up with “Good to see ya. Welcome to Fox and Friends.” Carlson tried to cover his gaffe by saying, “I know we’re not on television so it doesn’t bother me.” Maybe the camera’s red light alerted him to his mistake when he said, “Are we live? Is this honestly live?”

His excuse was substituting for Sean Hannitythe evening before. Even if the program ran overtime, Carlson still had enough time for four to five hours of sleep. Maybe that’s why Fox gets so many things wrong: they just sleep through everything that they report.

Thomas Kersting, therapist and school counselor, wasn’t sleeping on Fox and Friends when he advocated a plan in a New Jersey’s school district to throw away a child’s meal if their parents hadn’t filled out the right paperwork for the Free and Reduce Lunch program. He considered it a “teaching moment” and claimed that the hungry kids aren’t actually punished. He said,

“We have more food than any other nation. You know, no kid is going to starve. You know, if one day a kid doesn’t have lunch, right, maybe that’s a teaching moment when that kid doesn’t have lunch. That may sound harsh saying that, but we’ve got to get people to start being responsible for themselves.”

Last fall, Fox fell asleep throughout all the polling that showed Barack Obama would win a second term and then looked shell-shocked when Ohio’s results came in. Karl Rove had a meltdown, which made me wonder if he had planned something else with the potentially rigged computers.

Last month, a host on Fox explained that the network Al Jazeera is popular in the Arab world because most of the people there sympathize with Osama bin Laden’s attempts to kill U.S. citizens. Jim Pinkerton, a Fox contributor and writer for American Conservative, agreed, citing Pew surveys. But the survey results show the opposite. In 2011, Pew found that “in the months leading up to Osama bin Laden’s death, a survey of Muslim publics around the world found little support for the al Qaeda leader.” Al Jazeera America bought Current TV last January and launched in August to almost half of the U.S. homes subscribing to television.

After President Obama called for the expansion of universal early childhood education, Fox accused the plan of being a government handout, “literally, the nanny state,” designed to entice toddlers to vote for him. Fox’s sister station, Fox Business, then called the proposal “immoral” because the country couldn’t afford it. “It’s immoral to put this across as something that’s actually doable, when it’s not.” No education, no dreams.

If statistics don’t match the conservative view, Fox presents charts to make their case, for example, making an unemployment rate of 8.6 percent look higher than 8.9 percent. Fox slept through the Benghazi briefings, claiming that the CIA had denied a diplomat permission to fend off the attack on the embassy. When one coal company laid off employees, Fox frequently ran pieces on the president’s “War on Coal” and its huge layoffs in the industry. At the same time, the industry actually had tremendous growth.

Almost all Fox’s climate coverage is wrong: the Union of Concerned Scientists found that 93 percent of Fox coverage on the topic was “misleading.” According to Fox, wind power causes global warming, carbon dioxide cannot cause global warming because it doesn’t mix well in the atmosphere, and solar energy won’t work in the U.S. because it isn’t sunny like in Germany. They’re wrong on all of these.

If stories don’t fit their conservative philosophy, they ignore them, even if the important ones. For example, Fox did almost no reporting on senatorial candidate Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comments, the conflict surrounding the death of teenager Trayvon Martin, and the passage of New York’s marriage equality law.

Fox pushed the falsehood that President Obama gave more “freebies” than any other administration when George W. Bush wins the award for the largest increase in food stamps. Fox pundit Liz Trotta said that military women should “expect” to be raped if they join the service. Geraldo Rivera blamed Trayvon Martin’s murder on what he was wearing—his hoodie. Voter oppression was commonly described on Fox as an “attempt to fight voter fraud.” Conspiracy theorists on Fox claimed that the polls denying Mitt Romney the presidency were wrong—right up to the night of the election.

Even when Fox wakes up, it acts as a bully. Convinced that Attorney General Eric Holder lied during his testimony before Congress in June, they started a petition for his ouster from office. Appearing with Sean Hannity, Bill Cunningham verbally abused another panelist, Tamara Holder, when he demanded that she sign the petition. When she addressed his rudeness, Cunningham delivered a string of sexist remarks after saying, “Wait a minute, you shut up. Know your role and shut your mouth.”

His sexism was in keeping with earlier comments from Fox contributor Erick Erickson, who claimed that science proves that women should be submissive to women and that men should earn more money. That was only part of the Fox’s sexist dismay after a study showed that women are increasingly making the most money in their relationships.

It doesn’t stop there. Last month, Fox “medical expert” Dr. David Samadi (again on Fox & Friends) declared that Obamacare should drop the “gender equality” requirement because women have breasts, and ovaries, and a uterus. He evidently slept through the class about male reproductive organs. Pregnancy, as a “pre-existing condition,” wouldn’t occur without males.

Even Fox women behave like bullies. Enraged by the Justice Department investigating a Fox reporter, co-host of The Five Andrea Tantaros, ranted:

“Fox said, we’re targets, clearly Media Matters and others have put us on a target list. And they said, ‘Oh, Fox is just crazy! They’re just paranoid!’ Really? Are we? This is what is happening to our press! This is Obama’s America! It’s like the Soviet Union. He said he would change the country. He said it. And a lot of people voted for him.”

Tantaros finished by telling the audience that if her audience finds any of these people who voted for President Obama, “do me a favor, punch them in the face.” When a caller worried that she was sending the wrong message, she explained:

“To be clear, I didn’t say punch Obama in the face. You’re going to get me arrested with this type of government. If someone voted for him! If anyone that you know who voted for President Obama, smack ‘em down.”

And there’s much, much more. Although this article is over a year old, it shows how Fox badly informs its viewers. Here’s a newer one. And a former devoted Fox watcher has devoted his entire blog to Fox lies. We’re all better off if everyone on Fox just sleeps.